


Youthfully Felt

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 08:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17280266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: Years after Supernatural ends, Jared and Jensen reunite to resolve some things that were left unaddressed.





	Youthfully Felt

**Author's Note:**

> This was my one and only fill for the most recent round of [spn_masquerade](https://spn-masquerade.livejournal.com). I was in a weird place at the time and wasn't happy with what I produced for the fest, so I didn't claim it, but I guess I've decided to now. The original prompt was _[non au, years after SPN is over, meet up to resolve all that UST](https://spn-masquerade.livejournal.com/8997.html?thread=3207461#t3207461)_.

The thing with Jared was always…weird. Weird is a weak way to put it, he knows that. Weird makes it sound wrong when, under every other complicated layer, what it really boiled down to was a feeling of rightness so strong it scared him. But weird—that’s the word you use when there’s no clean, easy way to describe something. So, him and Jared? It was weird.

Jensen was never good with words. He’s made a whole life, a pretty damn lucrative life, out of expressing himself through other people’s. But tonight can’t go like that, if it goes at all. This is his one shot to get it right, not for a camera but for himself. To say what he should have said twenty years ago, just in case anyone is still listening.

The idea alone scares him out of his mind, and he’s longing for Jared to just get here already, for that sense of calm and purpose that always accompanied Jared’s presence in a room. He’s longing for it almost as much as he’s dreading it.

Jared was never safe, but he was safety. Jensen could relax around him, could be himself in a way he hadn’t ever thought he wanted to be. It was a degree of acceptance that made him feel giddy at times, made him act rashly. The sense of safety he got from Jared was just about the most dangerous thing he’d ever experienced, or at least that’s what he told himself back then. He ran towards safe instead and didn’t realize until it was too goddamn late that he’d just been too chickenshit to accept a good thing when it threw itself at him.

But what if it hadn’t been too late?

A hand lands on his shoulder, instant warmth. Huge, long fingers squeeze and Jensen closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, the last moment of safe before he turns to see Jared and goes barreling off this cliff he’s been dancing on the edge of for most of his adult life.

“Hey, man,” comes Jared’s voice from behind him, and Jensen nearly drops the glass of whiskey he’s been nursing for the last hour. His hands were already shaking, but the firm grip on him now is all he can think about, and it’s just muscle memory that’s keeping the glass from slipping through his fingers.

Jensen opens his eyes. He hadn’t needed to see Jared to angle his head exactly right, so it’s Jared’s gaze, every color in the crayon box mixed together, earnest warmth and fondness, that Jensen meets head on.

In possibly the most melodramatic moment of his life, which is saying something, considering what his first major acting gig was, Jensen kinda forgets how to breathe.

Thankfully, it’s just that moment. “Jared, hi.”

He holds his hand out, like Jared is going to shake it, and Jared laughs at him, wraps him in two long arms and pulls him against his chest. Jensen is twenty-six years old again, overwhelmed by this stranger he’s supposed to share the screen with and not be overshadowed by. When Jared starts to pull away, Jensen burrows closer and puts his own arms around Jared so he can’t escape. Dean Winchester would have been proud.

Finally, he’s taken enough air in to fill his lungs with Jared and only Jared, so he lets go, laughing as he looks around nervously, remembering where they are. Five years ago, he couldn’t walk into a bar in Austin alone without being mobbed by fans, let alone him and Jared both. Now, the rest of the patrons continue their first dates and business drinks completely oblivious to the two-man reunion happening in this dark, nearly empty corner of Sixth Street.

Hard to wrap his head around the fact that five years can make such a difference when twenty have passed without changing a thing.

“It’s been a while,” Jared says. His voice is soft but not hurt, not accusing. Not like Jensen’s would be if their positions were reversed. It’s almost infuriating how understanding he is. A fight would be easier to handle than Jared’s gentle, “I missed you.”

“You too, man,” Jensen answers. “How have things been here?”

“Hot,” Jared replies, grinning. “But I get by. How’s L.A.?”

_Lonely. Boring. I shouldn’t have left and you knew it._

“Oh, you know. Living the dream,” says Jensen, tightly. He sounds convincing. He’s good at this.

But Jared is always going to be better. His smile is sad, picking up the truth under Jensen’s lie. “The kids?”

“Taller than you now,” Jensen jokes. He finishes his whiskey and puts the glass on the counter too hard, but it’s not loud enough to make a scene in this rowdy dive bar and thank god for that. “I hear they’re going to Brazil with Auntie Gen over winter break.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m not going with them, so both our kids will be in safe hands.”

“You and her are still, uh…?”

Jared nods. “Business is business. She’s got a boyfriend these days. Nice guy.”

“That’s good, I’m glad she’s doing alright. Does she still talk to—?” Jensen shakes his head. “Never mind.”

For the first time since he got here, Jared’s expression really falters. Jensen can see hurt and realizes too late how badly he screwed up.

“Danneel is doing fine,” he tells Jensen, looking down at the floor between them. “Please tell me you didn’t call me out tonight for details on your ex-wife.”

“No, Jared,” Jensen reaches out for Jared’s hand and the moment he touches it, that old, familiar danger creeps into his bones. Jared doesn’t pull away like he maybe should. Instead, his fingers curl around Jensen’s and he looks up. “I came here for you.”

Jared hasn’t changed much. Not in twenty years, not in the five since they’ve been regular fixtures in each other’s lives. On the surface, sure. People used to joke about him growing up on set, about how the Sam from Supernatural’s Pilot may as well have been a different actor than the one who closed his eyes for good at the wrap of Season Fifteen. His face matured and his hair is streaked through with gray, still long, so Jensen gets the urge to slide his fingers through those white strands and learn if they feel as soft as the brown used to. But his expressions are all the same. He’d seemed younger than he was when they’d started filming, and somehow the decades since then haven’t aged him up in any way that matters. His expression is still so naïve, so breakable.

Jensen doesn’t know how that kind of innocence survives everything Jared’s gone through, but he desperately wants to know if he can touch it, if he can borrow some of that goodness without ruining it.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Jared asks.

He lets out a sigh of relief, because, once again, Jared has read his mind. This whole bar thing was his bad idea. He thought they should meet on neutral ground, with eyes around, that a few drinks and light conversation would help them ease back into each other. But standing here, not able to act on things that will always be too big to express with small talk—it’s making his skin crawl.

Jensen drops too much money on the bar for his one drink. “Please.”

_______________________________________________________________

The drive back to Jared’s place is nearly silent. For over a decade, if Jared was away from him for a few hours, Jensen would find himself full to the brim with things he needed to say by the time they were together again, and Jared was just the same. Now, five years with hardly more than a Christmas card and a few short conversations at publicity events between them, and Jensen’s tongue is still. He tries to remember the thousands of things that happened that made him think _I should tell Jared about this_ , but the only thought he can hold in his mind is _this is really going to happen_.

See, here’s the thing about him and Jared. The _weird_ part. They were never just friends, but they were never more than friends. Nothing ever actually happened. Not a fuck, not a kiss, not even a word to express that they wanted it. They followed the rules to a T. In practice, Jensen Ackles has never been anything but straight. Whatever poisoned his marriage, it wasn’t infidelity. They never acted on it

But they wanted to. They both knew it. Hell, maybe his wife knew it, too. Jensen never had an “aha!” moment where he realized Jared wanted him, just like he couldn’t put his finger on when he knew he wanted Jared. He just knew he _wanted Jared_ and something in Jared’s eyes always ached for him in return.

When Jensen called Jared up and told him he would be in Austin, _did Jared want to grab a drink?_ , neither of them made innuendo, there was no wink-wink-nudge-nudge in his tone. But by the time he hung up, he felt great certainty that they both knew how this was going to end.

And now they’re here. Something huge is going to shift once they cross the threshold of Jared’s door, and Jensen just watched the key click in the lock.

Time slows down as it swings open, like some deity is watching this, making sure to give Jensen plenty of time to change his mind. Five years ago, he would have taken the out. He would have read that long moment as a sign that he was about to make a very big mistake. Now? Jensen already made the biggest mistake possible, and he’s not about to fuck this up again.

He pushes Jared. It’s one of the most uncharacteristic moments of his life, and Jared makes a confused noise as he trips past the precipice, but Jensen can’t help it. He’s scared. He’s terrified he’ll change his mind and turn around, and he knows once that door is closed behind him, once he has just a moment’s taste of Jared, he won’t ever be able to take it back. He just needs to get out of safe and into safety.

“You drunker than I realized?” Jared asks, joking, but he looks concerned when he turns to face Jensen.

Jensen would usually take the excuse for his behavior, except that he needs to be clear here. Everything tonight has to be crystal clear. He can’t have Jared thinking this was a drunken mistake, because he just might let himself believe that, too, once the morning comes and he has to face this.

“No,” he says, taking a moment to slam the door shut behind him, but keeping his eyes locked on Jared.

Jared stays where he’s standing, frozen like a statue, and Jensen reaches up to trace his cheek with the kind of reverence Michelangelo must have felt when he finished the David. Under Jensen’s fingers, Jared’s skin begins to tremble and, god, he gets it. They’ve waited so fucking long for this.

“Can I?” he asks.

Before he gets an answer, Jared’s lips are on his. He opens to a familiar mouth, runs his tongue over teeth he’s memorized the shape of, and as they move together, they kiss as if every damn fantasy Jensen has tried to stomp down in the last twenty years had been real, as if they’ve done this a thousand times. All that familiarity spills over and it doesn’t matter that this is new or that they’ve haven’t talked much in half a decade; it’s so easy to forget the countless times he made the wrong choice now that the right choice is pressed up against him. It feels like starting over, like traveling back in time. And this is just the first kiss.

“Jensen,” Jared whispers, breaking away only for a moment, but when his lips meet Jensen’s again, Jensen tastes salt. 

Jensen doesn’t call attention to it. Jared’s got every right to be emotional. Jensen did wrong by him, by them both, but he’s going to make it right. Not everyone gets a chance to fix things like this.

He pulls back and wipes his thumbs under Jared’s eyes, says, “I’m here. I’m here.”

Jared takes his hand, like back at the bar, only this time the grip is sure. Jensen has been in this house so many times, used to visit it nearly daily, but he’s hardly ever had reason to go where Jared’s leading him. By they time they reach the master bedroom, Jensen’s heart is pounding so loud in his ears that he hardly hears the excuses Jared is making about the state of his room and how he hadn’t had a chance to clean up.

He smiles anyway, because Jensen knows his boy. Jared is superstitious in funny ways. All those years playing Sam Winchester didn’t make him believe in ghosts, but maybe growing up on Texas football gave him a quirk or two about how luck works. Jared didn’t forget to clean his room so much as he had the thought that planning for this would lessen the odds.

At any rate, Jensen couldn’t care less if there are a few shirts on the floor to kick out of the way, not when Jared eagerly starts stripping and the clothes he’d been wearing get tossed down next to the rest of it.

Jensen is slower to undress. It’s funny, how different they can be sometimes, and how all that difference seems to balance out when they let it. Jared is all eager energy; he’s waited long enough for this. Jensen is just the opposite. He wants this to make this last.

Jared is already naked on the bed by the time Jensen is in his boxers. He laughs, gesturing impatiently for Jensen to join him. Jensen does, forgetting about taking off the last piece of clothing, because when that much tan, perfect skin reaches out to you, you go.

They’re kissing again before Jensen is even fully on the mattress, and he’s not entirely sure how it happens that he ends up at the head of the bed, lying on his back with Jared leaning over him, lips still crushing against his own. Jared breaks the contact and Jensen lets out a sound that’s embarrassingly close to a whine, trying to pull him back in.

Jared ignores him, moving down Jensen’s body like it’s some strange, unmapped world he needs to conquer. He presses his lips to the skin over Jensen’s ribs, to the softness of his belly, and the jut of his hipbone—everywhere his kiss lands feels like drops of lava have fallen there, like Jensen is literally on fire for him.

His erection thickens under the thin fabric of his boxers, and Jared makes a delighted sound, gently running his fingers along the line of it before dipping them under the elastic and pushing down until Jensen is free.

“Jared,” Jensen says. “Please.”

“So polite,” Jared teases, looking up at Jensen through narrowed, foxlike eyes. He’s torturing Jensen dragging it out like this, but if this is supposed to be payback for what Jensen did, Jared miscalculated. Jensen wants it to go on forever.

The last kiss Jared plants on Jensen is at the head of his dick, with the shaft held firmly in hand. He licks at the tip like a kitten tasting milk, then goes down on Jensen so deep Jensen is the one that chokes.

“Not like this,” he says, but his hand comes to rest on the back of Jared’s head, and he doesn’t pull him off. He doesn’t guide Jared, because nothing he could imagine would ever be half as good as the pace Jared sets. It’s too much. Too good. He’s waited too long. “Jared, not like this.”

Jared pulls up, wiping slobber off the whole bottom half of his face and Jensen isn’t sure why that’s hot, but he’s so fucking close already.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jared says. His fingers tighten on Jensen’s base, and Jensen takes a few steadying breaths. For the first time, Jared’s tone is sharp, nearly threatening. “Don’t you come, Jensen. Not yet. You owe me this. _You owe me this._ ”

Jensen nods, reaching out and placing his hand on Jared’s cheek. “Tell me how…” How to make up for it. As if he could ever make up for it.

“Fuck me,” Jared whispers. He’s vulnerable again, needy. Desperate. For Jensen. Thank god.

Jensen immediately springs into action, pushing Jared onto his back and reaching between his legs. He tries to wrap his hand around Jared’s dick, but Jared catches him, leading him until his fingers meet slick lube and a silicone handle, and his brain trips as he realizes…

“That whole time?” he asks, fingers hooking on the plug and tugging just enough for it to tease Jared.

Jared lets out a soft moan and nods, and he looks at Jensen in a way that answers every other question Jensen could ask. He shuts his mouth, nodding, ashamed. Jared took every step possible to make this easy, so that Jensen wouldn’t back out. That’s the catch about Jared knowing him so well—Jensen can’t hide the parts of himself that he would like to.

“Condom?” Jensen’s voice is thick as he pulls the plug out of Jared.

Jared shakes his head. “Want to feel you. If this is—I need to feel you, Jensen.”

Jensen isn’t about to fight him. He hasn’t been with anyone since the divorce went through. It’s not as fun at his age to think of dating as it was back before he met Danneel, especially not when there’s really just one person left to want.

He wants desperately, but as soon as he has the plug out, Jensen remembers…he doesn’t actually know how to make this everything Jared deserves. He’s out of practice when it comes to fucking—and that’s just with women. For all the times he’s dreamed of this and all the porn with brown-haired boys getting bent over that he’s jerked off to, imagining this exact moment, he doesn’t know the specifics of what he’s about to do here.

“I’ve been tested,” Jared assures him, misreading Jensen’s hesitance. “When you called, I…” Jared blushes and turns his face away. “Please just do it, Jensen.”

He licks his lips and admits, “I’ve never—”

Jared cuts him off with a laugh. “I know that,” he says. “Don’t you think I know?”

“I just might not…”

Jared shakes his head and sits up a little, just enough to takes Jensen’s face between his hands, start a kiss that washes every uncertainty out of Jensen’s mouth. He keeps one palm flat on Jensen’s cheek, but his other hand moves down, slipping between them, guiding Jensen into him.

“If it’s you, it’ll be good,” Jared assures him. “Please, I need it so bad.”

Jensen swallows hard, wishing his doubts were as easy to push down, but he gives Jared what he wants. He moves forward slowly, inch by inch, fascinated by the way Jared accepts him, how he can feel Jared’s body shifting inside to make room for him. It’s different. It’s so good he can’t think straight.

Jared rocks under him, and it’s just that little movement that brings Jensen back to the moment, reminds him he can’t just sink into Jared and stay there. So he pulls out and shoves forward again, much harder this time, confident that Jared can take him, even if he’s still unsure about the rest of it.

“Good,” Jared says, voice breathy. “Good. Now do it again, but just angle your hips like—oh, fuck.”

“Like that?” Jensen asks.

“You always do that.” Jared laughs and throws an arm over his face, like he’s trying to hide the bright smile Jensen can hear in his words. “Act so damn shy and nervous about something and then you’re perfect at it right away.”

Jensen takes Jared’s wrist and pulls it away from his face, pinning it to the bed over his head, and then he fucks into Jared again, trying to replicate his success. Jared makes a strangled sound and starts grinding his body, trying to meet Jensen’s dick every time it thrusts into him.

He keeps the rhythm up for as long as it takes to get Jared writhing and moaning under him, until finally Jared starts to struggle against his hold, and he realizes why Jared wants his hand back.

“You close?” he asks.

Jared doesn’t answer with words. He nods enthusiastically, tries to pull his hand down again, and Jensen holds him with even more force.

“Don’t touch,” he says, releasing Jared’s wrist.

To Jared’s credit, he obeys. Immediately he puts both of his hands on one of Jensen’s shoulders and uses the leverage to fuck himself up even more.

“Jensen,” he warns. “I need to. I’m gonna. Please. Please. _Please._ ”

Jensen pulls back from him just enough to tease one finger down Jared’s chest. Unlike Jensen, Jared’s still got defined abs, a clear line between the taut muscle for him to trace before he reaches Jared’s very hard, very big, and searing hot cock.

It feels a little unfair that time hasn’t made Jared any less beautiful, but Jensen smiles to himself anyway, because Jared could be his now. Looking like this. Needing him like this. All Jensen has to do—all he ever had to do—is be brave enough to take it.

He takes now, burying himself as deep in Jared as he can as he strokes Jared’s dick. Jared’s head is thrown back, long throat bared and Jensen feels an animal need to claim, sinks his teeth into the soft flesh before soothing over it with his tongue. Jared starts to come then, spurts that Jensen catches in his fist and uses to ease the way as he keeps working Jared through his orgasm, sucking at his neck as he does it.

As much as he wishes this could last, Jensen’s climax creeps up on him as he’s still finishing Jared off. The sounds Jared makes and the way his ass tightens around Jensen’s dicks as he shoots is too much, and Jensen spills into the tight heat under him, the intensity of the feeling so focused that it’s not until he’s through his aftershocks that Jensen realizes he’s fallen bonelessly onto Jared, crushing him like deadweight.

“I’m sorry,” he says, moving to pull out, but Jared’s arms are still anchored around his back, hands clamped tight on his shoulders, and Jared doesn’t let him move.

“Just a few minutes,” Jared whispers.

Jensen realizes what he’s doing, what he’s been doing all night. Trying to commit every little thing to memory. It’s not sentiment about their first time. Jared is preparing to say goodbye.

He does pull out then and rolls off of Jared. The other side of Jared’s bed is empty and cold, but it gives him some room to think. He had been hoping actions could substitute for words here, but Jared still doesn’t know, and Jensen can’t risk saying anything until he knows exactly what he’s going to say.

“Did it work?” Jared asks after a few long minutes of silence. Jensen turns onto his side to look at him, confused, and Jared does the same in reverse until they’re facing each other. “Did you get me out of your system?”

“Is that—is that what you think this was?”

Jared shrugs and casts his eyes to the side, idly picking at a piece of lint on his sheets. “I’m the itch you never scratched, right? And now you can go back and fix things with your wife.”

“My wife?” Jensen repeats. “Jared, are you kidding me right now?”

“I have seen her, you know,” Jared says. “She misses you. I thought maybe you might miss me more. But the first thing you did was ask…” Jared smiles, but it lasts less than a second before it falters, and he gives up on it. “I want you to be happy.”

“I’ve never been less happy than I was the last five years,” Jensen admits. “You really thought that was what this was about for me? And you still let me fuck you?”

“You don’t know how much I wanted you. How _long_ I wanted you.”

“Yes,” Jensen says. “I do know.”

Jared makes a sound that’s almost like a laugh, but without any humor in it. “Yeah, I suppose you did. I was always pretty fucking obvious, huh?”

He reaches out to hook a finger under Jared’s chin and turn his face up, so he can see how much Jensen means what he’s about to say. “I know how badly I screwed up, Jared. I don’t expect you to forgive it. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel it as strongly as you did. At least believe that.”

Jared shakes his head and presses a hand to his chest, like he’s trying to push some physical pain back down to where it started. “You never could have—if you felt like this—you wouldn’t have walked away.”

“We just had so much to lose back then. I was so scared that we would end up resenting each other. But I lost it all anyway. When I cut you out, I cut out the best parts of me, too. My marriage wasn’t ever going to work like that, Jared. I couldn’t be the man she married. All I could be was bitter I’d let you go.”

“You didn’t have to shut me out,” Jared tells him. “We could have kept things like they were.”

“No,” says Jensen. “I couldn’t have. I knew myself and what I could take and fifteen years next to you was as long as I could go without breaking.”

“So was this…did I break you?” Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Jared’s lips quirk into grin. “Shoulda taken it easier on you your first time.”

“Does have a way of making you feel young again,” Jensen jokes back. “Losing your virginity all over. I feel twenty. Couldn’t recommend it more.”

“You don’t look twenty,” Jared teases, smoothing out the wrinkles by Jensen’s eyes and smiling softly. “But you’re pretty hot for an old guy.”

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but your teen heartthrob days are pretty far behind you, too.”

Jared smiles and ducks his head, and Jensen lets the lighter atmosphere rest for a minute or two before bringing it back to where they got off track. “You didn’t break me. I broke us. I broke my marriage. I was such a coward, Jared. I don’t know how you can still want me after what I did.”

“We both made our choices,” Jared responds. “I didn’t fight for you. I thought, maybe, if I respected your decision, I could keep you at least, the way I had you then. That was enough for me. I mean, not enough, but it was bearable. I should have fought. I shouldn’t have let you go quietly. Jensen, you were worth fighting for.”

Jensen looks him over for a long time, then says, “You don’t have to fight for me now. I’ve had enough.”

“Stay,” Jared offers. “Stay with me.”

Jensen doesn’t bother trying to find the words to tell him that he never really left.


End file.
